{"id":7839,"date":"2026-04-18T10:02:55","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T14:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/?p=7839"},"modified":"2026-05-01T10:57:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T14:57:33","slug":"up-in-arms-the-embrace-and-public-perception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/2026\/04\/18\/up-in-arms-the-embrace-and-public-perception\/","title":{"rendered":"Up in Arms: The Embrace<\/em> and Public Perception"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Catherine Lennartz<\/span><\/h4>\n
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Figure 1. Hank Willis Thomas (born 1976). The Embrace<\/em> (2022). Bronze. 22 ft. (6.7 m). Boston, Massachusetts. Photograph by author, March 2023.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After six years of planning, The Embrace<\/em>, a sculpture depicting the intertwined arms of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, was unveiled in the Boston Common on January 16, 2023, to mark Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (fig. 1). It was designed by Hank Willis Thomas with MASS Design Group in response to a call for proposals by Embrace Boston, the City of Boston, and The Boston Foundation. They wished to honor Dr. King and recognize his connection to the city. <\/sup>When it was unveiled, it faced scrutiny and lewd criticism, especially from commentators online. My investigation into this backlash fits into my broader dissertation research on three contemporary artists working in North America who create commemorative work addressing the human rights violations attendant to settler colonialism.<\/span><\/p>\n

Grounded in postcolonial theory, my analysis of memorial trends accepts that the cultural, political, and economic legacies of colonialism and its power structures continue to shape relations, identities, and representations around the world. I document the way North American artists memorialize the rights violations of colonialism and the ways in which those ills persist in society today. My analysis of The Embrace<\/em> will be part of a chapter dedicated to the public art of Hank Willis Thomas in the United States which addresses racial violence during and after slavery. The two other chapters of my dissertation examine the work of Rebecca Belmore and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, considering installations, performances, and interactive pieces as commemorative. As such, public perception plays an important role in how \u201csuccessful\u201d each of the studied works are at commemorating systemic injustices. In the case of The Embrace<\/em>, I argue that it was not only aesthetics, but ill-defined and inconsistent goals that provoked negative feedback from audiences.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2017, project initiator and tech entrepreneur Paul English was quoted as saying, \u201cI want it to be epic,\u201d vocabulary not often used when talking about creating a memorial to a civil rights activist who was assassinated for his beliefs.1<\/sup> The project\u2019s website at the time stated that the goal of this new memorial was \u201cto inspire visitors by Dr. King\u2019s words, and to also reflect on Boston\u2019s history with race and civil rights.\u201d2<\/sup> This broad and somewhat unfocused statement changed on the website over the years from \u201cDr. King\u2019s words<\/em>\u201d to \u201cDr. King\u2019s work<\/em>,\u201d (emphasis mine) and from an invitation to \u201creflect\u201d on Boston\u2019s history, to a challenge to \u201cmake Boston a better place for all our residents and visitors.\u201d3<\/sup> By the time Thomas was involved in the project, love had been added as a core value on Embrace Boston\u2019s website. This stemmed from the artist\u2019s focus on Coretta\u2019s influence on Dr. King in developing their shared philosophy of nonviolent resistance.4<\/sup> The sculpture\u2019s form was inspired by a photograph of the couple hugging after Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 (fig. 2).5<\/sup> Typically, monuments dedicated to resistance against human rights abuses\u2014or, in this case, racial and economic injustice\u2014must \u201cdevelop and clearly articulate deliberate goals and strategies in [their] process, form, content, and programming,\u201d according to a 2007 report on memorialization and democracy.6<\/sup> Instead of driving the vision for the memorial, the focus on love was an afterthought, compounding the already mixed messages coming from organizers. The inconsistency around messaging primed the public for disappointment, as their expectations did not align with the completed monument.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Figure 2. Martin Luther King Jr. hugs his wife Coretta Scott King after the announcement that he had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, October 14, 1964. Photograph Bettman Archive\/ Getty Images.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the days following the unveiling of The Embrace<\/em>, critics online voiced their discontent with the aesthetic form of the memorial. Many commentors were unsure what they were looking at while others claimed that the statue depicted sexual acts (figs. 3-5).7<\/sup> Beyond messaging, I believe that much of the sculpture\u2019s formal difficulties stem from the positioning of its disembodied arms, and from the way it breaks from traditional sculpted monuments of whole figures standing or mounted on horseback. None of the four limbs attach to a body, producing physiologically confusing junctions: Scott King\u2019s arms meet at a single point, skipping her shoulders and body width and creating an unnatural angle with her arms (fig. 1). Even with online backlash subsiding, these immediate misreadings limit the memorial\u2019s capacity for remembrance.<\/span><\/p>\n

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